The Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) was established by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to allow wireless service providers to send emergency alerts to their subscribers. Such alerts are initially intended to be in the form of text messages, but may also take the form of audio and video alerts. The CMAS network will allow emergency services agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to accept and aggregate alerts from federal, state, and local emergency operations centers, and send the alerts over a secure interface to wireless providers. The wireless providers can then distribute the alerts to their customers.
Emergency alerts issued by emergency services agencies may be intended to reach users in a specific geographical area. For instance, in the event of an impending potential natural disaster such as a hurricane, an emergency service agency may wish to notify the populations of the counties that have been determined to be most likely to be impacted by the potential disaster.
Emergency alert message may be provided to various types of devices in conformance with various types of formats. Thus, because multiple formats may be used, it is possible that a device, such as a mobile device, may not be able to process an emergency alert message because the emergency alert message was provided in a format not compatible with the device.